The Honolulu Museum of Art (HoMA) has been called “the finest small museum in the United States” (J. Carter Brown). It was founded in 1922 and houses a museum, art school, art cafe, coffee bar and souvenir shop. The museum is the largest in the state and has the single largest collection of Asian and Pan-Pacific art in the United States, especially Japanese and Chinese pieces. The classical and contemporary collections include both two dimensional as well as three dimensional works of art.The museum also has a long standing tradition of promoting Hawaii-based artists and its culture.

The museum has a collection that includes Hokusai, van Gogh, Gauguin, Monet, Picasso, Mary Cassatt, Cezanne, Degas, John Singer Sargent, Hans Hofmann, Georgia O’Keeffe, Warhol and many more European and American artists.

Special for this Fall is an international quality exhibition showcasing the Artists of Hawaii Now. It features 18 artists including film makers, basket makers, photographers, visual artists, sculptors, and other artists. When you enter the first room of this exhibit, you step onto a large scale movie projected from above. As you step onto the moving projected watery surface, the guide tells you to hang on, as you feel so immersed into the scene that it’s easy to be swept away and feel sea sick. Some of the 13 original place-based installations are interactive, and the audience becomes part of the conversation exploring the past, present and future struggles of the world’s most urgent global issues. Several sculptures were made with found objects.

One intriguing installation were made from photographs of Hawaiian algae, Cyanotype Impressions by Gwen Arkin, an artist from Maui, printed onto hanging sheets of textile and paper. We had a chance to immerse ourselves with the art.

There is live music at the Art Cafe every Friday and Saturday evenings. After touring the galleries, we were treated to dinner and music at the open-air cafe located in the outdoor courtyard. As you look around, you can enjoy the colorful blown glass piece by Dale Chihuly, the burbling water feature, the 8′ tall ceramic “dumplings” by artist Jun Kaneko, and the shade from a 75-year old monkeypod tree.